The problems faced by today's snowboarders are that the chair lift mechanisms have been designed for skiers. Due to the large capital expense of these chair lifts, they have not been re designed to accommodate today's snowboarders.
A snowboarder will mount the chair lift with his or her downhill foot bound to the snowboard leaving the other foot free. Once loaded and aloft in the chair lift, the combined weight of the snowboard and boot pull down on the downhill foot which is still bound to the snowboard. During the ride up the mountain, the wind will catch the sail area of the snowboard and add increased force on the snowboarder's leg. This results in typically cutting off circulation to the downhill foot and leg. This also makes disembarking the chair lift difficult as the snowboarder's downhill foot and leg are fatigued and possibly numb or ‘asleep’.
The purpose of this invention is to relieve the load placed on the snowboarder's downhill foot and leg while riding on a chair lift. It is a further purpose of this invention to also be lightweight, compact, self retractable and user friendly.
Various products in the marketplace disclose various methods of supporting a snowboard. U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,746 to Schepers lacks many of the features of the present invention namely a safety release mechanism, a spring loaded self retractable mechanism, and a compact all inclusive outer structure designed to accommodate the hooking mechanism itself.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,968 to Crego lacks the outer structure fixedly attached to the snowboard, provides no way of self-retracement of the chord or webbing, and lacks no safety release mechanism of the hook in case the mechanism freezes in the locked position to the chair lift.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,321,470 to Zazzi simply uses an article attached to the end of the free boot of the snowboarder to help support the snowboard on the chair lift ride up the mountain. No elements of the present invention are in this patent to Zazzi.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,260 to Brill uses a loop strap that fits over the snowboarder's unbound leg and under the snowboard itself to support the weight of the snowboard. No elements of the present invention are seen in the invention to Brill.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,729 to Gomez shows a quite complicated harness that fits around the user's thorax and is coupled to the user's bound leg and to the snowboard itself. The invention appears quite cumbersome and complicated in hooking up straps for each chair ride, while not providing a means for easy storage while actually snowboarding down the mountain.